RCom takes mobile tariff war to next level

RCom offers unlimited CDMA talk for single recharge in month.

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Mail Today Bureau

New Delhi

May 7, 2010

UPDATED: May 7, 2010 09:11 IST

Taking the ongoing tariff war among the various telecom service providers one step ahead, Reliance Communications (RCom), an Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) company, on Thursday launched new tariff plans offering unlimited and unconditional talk time for its CDMA subscribers for a one-time monthly recharge.

Under the Simply Unlimited CDMA Offer, RCom will launch two calling packs - one local, and the another national. The unlimited local call pack will come at a monthly fixed charge of Rs 299, while the unlimited STD calls will come for a monthly tariff of Rs 599.

Under this plan, RCom customers can make unlimited free calls to any local Reliance phone as well as virtually unlimited free local calls to any other network.

All national long distance (NLD) within the Reliance network and NLD to all other networks will be charged at 50 paisa per minute.

Simply Unlimited CDMA National Pack users can make unlimited free calls to any Reliance phone in India, including GSM, CDMA or fixed line, both local or national. The pack also offers virtually unlimited local and NLD free calls to other networks in India. Reliance said there are no additional or hidden charges included in the tariff.

"Through this new offer Reliance Communications breaks away from the conventional tariff metering practice of the Indian telecom industry.

The new Simply Unlimited CDMA Offer aims to redefine the Indian mobile telecom space as well as expand the overall Simply Reliance portfolio," the company said.

To check the commercial misuse of this plan both the Unlimited Packs are subject to fair usage condition of 30 minutes per day for off-net calls. Beyond 30 minutes per day, these calls will be charged at 50 paisa per minute.

Mahesh Prasad, president, marketing-wireless business, Reliance Communications, said, "Most of the current market offerings make certain distinctions in terms of usage on local versus long-distance, onnet versus off-net calling or daytime versus night time. Through our Simply Unlimited CDMA Offer, we plan to do away with the tariff metering practices of the Indian telecom industry."

The mobile tariff war started about six months back with the entry of new players like MTS, Aircel and Tata DoCoMo, which saw tariff rates being slashed aggressively in order to capture the market share of existing telecom service providers.

Tata DoCoMo started the payper-second tariff plan. As the move turned out to be a huge success other big players like Reliance and Airtel joined in with similar pay-per-second plans.

Airtel extended this offer to the India Calling Cards in the US and went on to cut its mobile roaming charges by nearly 60 per cent.

This was followed by Tata Indicom, which launched the 30 paise per minute plan for all its local calls and 50 paise per minute for all STD calls for CDMA users. Uninor, the joint venture of realty major Unitech Ltd and Norway's telecom giant Telenor, last month fuelled a new tariff war by introducing rates as low as 20 paise per minute.

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